Leadership Styles
by Bibliotecaria.D
Summary: Grimlock prefers hands-on learning.


**Title: **Leadership Styles

**Warnings: **Tactile seduction, I suppose.

**Rating: **PG (for a couple words)

**Continuity: **G1?

**Characters:** Optimus, Grimlock

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Fic-for-Pic Motivation (Prompt): **_Optimus/Grimlock - paint mauling_

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><p><strong>[* * * * *]<strong>

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><p>"This is ridiculous."<p>

Grimlock didn't acknowledge him. Of course it was ridiculous. If it weren't, it would be normal, and this couldn't possibly be normal.

The red showed up against his hands. The blue smeared more, but it blended better into the crannies and joins. Grimlock paused briefly to rub his hands together, forcing the paint in. Dried paint caught between his palms and crushed from chips into a fine powder, and red and blue washed over the gray metal. Satisfied, he reached down again. Optimus just sighed and shifted to allow him access.

The Dinobot leader's hands were not meant for finesse. They were large and blocky. They'd been meant for functionality, and that function was war.

Optimus' hands were finer, but oddly similar on close examination. They'd been made for manual labor, not war.

Grimlock's hands were streaked with blue now, and Optimus' with grey. It didn't change either one of them, not really, but Grimlock knew it did. They were robots in disguise. They became, at least some of the time, their disguises. The flecks of colors gritted and smeared. The edges of the Dinobot's blocky fingers scraped up the paint, revealing grey underneath, and left his own darker color along the edges. When Optimus reached up in return, Grimlock bent down to allow him access to the vast plates of his altmode. The blue fingers touched with near-reverence, sliding slowly down the inside, until they caught on a protrusion.

The tapered fingers caught, dug it. They _scraped._

Grimlock groaned.

"This is ridiculous," Optimus repeated, but his fingers skreeled silver lines through the grey outer layer. "We shouldn't be —"

"You Prime talk too much," the Dinobot grunted. His shoulder-paneled flexed up and away as if to punish the Prime for his hesitancy. From the way blue fingers hung in the air, it was a punishment indeed. "Me Grimlock say we should."

"Alright." For a robot who didn't need to breath, the agreement was slightly breathless. Prime in-vented deeply when the panels came back down to reward him.

He arched when Grimlock's hands traveled down, under the clear glass of his windshield. One blocky forefinger was the perfect size to fit between the glass panels, and Grimlock pressed it in and down. A curled peel of red paint was pushed up as he drew it back up toward Optimus' face, and the smaller mech arched. It was an attempt to push into the tiny pain. It was trying to open up the space for another finger. Grimlock put his other hand on Optimus' shoulder and stopped him either way, because Grimlock was the one in charge, here.

"Ahhh…"

"You Prime stay _still._"

Prime squirmed but stopped when the finger's pressure lightened, threatening to leave. "…yes." Grimlock twisted his finger and ground it in, drawing a sharp inhale. "Yes!"

Grey and red ground together under his finger, like a mortar and pestle between the windshields. Grimlocked worked the colors back up the narrow strip to the sound of squealing metal-on-metal and a faint groan. When he took his finger away, the red was scrawled silver in deep scratchwork, and Prime slumped. He hadn't moved, he hadn't disobeyed, but when the finger left – oh, he slumped.

"Good." The red-streaked hand returned to give an approving pat on the truck grill.

The Autobot leader's blue optics crinkled slightly. "Most mechs would agree with that, I'd say."

A snort answered him. It could have been contempt for those other mechs (noticeably not here, of course) or Grimlock's version of a laugh at the small joke.

"Me Grimlock make own decision," the larger mech rumbled, and Optimus could hardly disagree when such decisions required straddling him. The blocky hands had knuckles of blue and lines of red, but Grimlock's chest was still pristine gold. Not for long, however. "Me Grimlock not good. Me Grimlock badass." He leaned forward, pressing chest-to-chest with the Autobot leader until the shiny gold reflected mauled paint, then nothing at all. "You Prime candyass."

Optimus raised his hands toward the Dinobot's mask and deliberately scratched five blue lines down the grey. "Perhaps. I tend to think all things are better in moderation. You could use some of my 'candyass'ness." His body twisted just slightly, hinting. "We could share, even."

That was definitely an amused snort this time. "You Prime want some badass?"

Prime laughed. "Take some of me, and I'll take some of you?" But it wasn't so much a question as confirmation as the Dinobot lowered himself over him.

The blocky hands were made for war, the body made for destruction. It was more Optimus' style to be patient and considerate. Maybe some of the Prime had rubbed off, however. Grimlock was not gentle, but he was thorough.


End file.
